So long as NO WADING signs are posted, wading should not be allowed.
Period. Either enforce the sign or remove it. Nonetheless, I don't know
all the reasons for the fountain in the first place, nor for the No Wading
sign posting.

If the intent of the fountain was to attract more people downtown, it's
been a huge "success". What have they attracted? Overwhelmingly the
undesirables, the noisy and undisciplined, the unsupervised, the
entitlement bunch, the users and abusers, the lawless (jungle law
excepted), and the destructive and potentially criminal elements. Was this
really the desired outcome? To me, it's one more giant step toward making
Syracuse the king of Slum Cities. The resultant sights and sounds around
the pool are oftentimes absolutely disgusting; but that's the outcome one
can expect with how such attractions are administered. To my mind, waders
(+ dogs, bikes, cars, bums, whatever) to a free public fountain are very
similar to flies at an outdoor picnic, smog to a city, or terrorists to a
country. Putting up a "No Wading" sign is just as effective as putting a can
of bug spray on a picnic table to shoo away the inevitable flies that will
soon show up. If there's no action with the spray, the flies will stay.
Furthermore, there will always be protests from the pests if someone then
takes away their free picnic. And, of course, the flies and pests do have
their rights and their place. They have a right to their own place and
should be kept there. End of discussion.

So the overall basic question is the outcome desired with the fountain (and
similar ones around the city). A choice needs to be made; either pander
the pool flies or eradicate them-and then have the political will to carry
it out. If history is any indicator, however, the flies will continue to
enjoy their picnic unmolested as the rest of the city continues to sink
into the cesspool. How bad do things have to get before someone wakes up
and has some small inkling as to what's going on, let alone taking the
requisite initiative to act upon it? Fountain policy is unfortunately only
the tip of the iceberg.